On Grasping and Letting Go
Transformation & the Search for Dharma
Hello, and welcome to Live Your Opus! Thank you for stopping by to read this weekโs post. This week, Iโm taking a different direction, sharing a bit about my personal transformation over the past few years to highlight how we tend to deal with change.
Most of us are dealing with change. When change hits and weโre not ready, we resist. When we stop resisting and lean into it, we engage with transformation and discover whatโs possibleโthatโs the gift of transformation. So, come see what happens when grasping turns to growth.
If youโre a new subscriber or someone forwarded this post, welcome to the Live Your Opus family. Iโm Janine Mathรณ, your Transformation Guide. Iโm on a mission to empower and inspire high achievers like you everywhere with the tools and expert resources you need to raise the bar on your dreams, lives, and work and achieve more meaningful, sustainable outcomes faster.ย
Grasping
Grasping. Clinging.ย I was flailing about, searching for any bits of the self I knew to keep my identity intact. This is how my greatest personal transformation began: desperately seeking normal.
Two major life events collidedโburnout and the sudden death of my motherโand suddenly, I was ripped out of life as I knew it.
The universe put me on this new path and said, "Walk."ย
I wanted to recover. But it only took a few days to realize that Iโd rather not walk. โFlying would be a quicker way back to normal,โ I tried to reason.
I was scared. One session with a therapist and I could already see that this journey would be longer than Iโd like and include rest stops in dark caverns of myself that I'd prefer to leave unexplored.ย
I worried I might lose the me that I knewโthe one I counted on and everyone counted on.
Grasping was my best hope of clinging to all I was or thought I was. Iโm sure you know what I mean.
Iโm reading Stephen Cope's book, The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling, which may be the most compelling book on personal transformation Iโve ever read.
Cope elaborates on the โgraspingโ and โclingingโ that most of us engage in when Change taps us on the shoulder.
โMost of us do not much like change. We get our mitts around the dharma of the moment and donโt want to let goโฆHanging on is our first strategy.โ (Cope, p732)
But transformation is pretty much inevitable once we see Change on the horizon. Our choice lies in how soon we succumb to whatโs coming and how soon we may see whatโs possible.
The longer we hang on to life as weโve known itโor whatโs โnormalโโthe more suffering we create for ourselves: indecision, sitting on the fence, feeling unmoored, lacking confidence or losing our mojoโฆwhatever phrasing you want to use. The seats halfway between the status quo and change are the most unpleasant.ย
Cope explains:
โThe mind caught up in a state of grasping is said to be โseparate.โ What could this mean? Simply that the experience of craving intensifies the split between subject and object (between โmeโ and โthe ice creamโ) so that it appears that without the object of my grasping, I am unwhole. Without the object of my desire, I am bereft. Empty. Unfulfilled. Grasping amplifies the sense of separation from the object.โ
In my case, grasping intensified the split between me and the sense of normalcy I craved: my old life. Without it, I felt โunwhole.โ
Letting Go
Looking through my journals from the past four years. I can see that I was grasping for quite a while.ย
Unsurprisingly, as a high achiever, I was hell-bent on ace-ing my recovery. If I could find a thread of myself that was strong enough to hold me, I would shimmy up her as though she were a lifeline back to me and claim her as my path forward.ย
Over three years, I:
Studied wine, gastronomy and management at Le Cordon Bleu London and earned a diploma with distinction.
Created Simply Eau-de-Vie, a food and wine blog.
Co-developed a research study on personal reinvention, interviewing fifty people on their transformations and identifying patterns (which will be a part of my book).
Consulted for ed-tech start-ups and scale-ups in the UK and Europe.
Leaned into being a mom, relishing my grown children who were home more due to the pandemic.
Developed a business plan for a wine bar in Provence.
Applied for and was offered jobs.ย
Launched ExponentialChangemakers, a membership network propelling women from early to mid-career (which still exists today).
Iโm tired just reading that list! At each step, I thought Iโd recovered and โfinishedโ my transformation. But I can now look back on that time and understand that I was still grasping.ย
โGrasping for an object actually interferes with knowing it.โ
Although I was trying on new hatsโnew dharmasโeach representing parts of me, my journey was incomplete.ย By grasping, I was interfering in the transformation process and with knowing.
I had not yet fully accepted the universeโs invitation (Read: REQUIREMENT) to transform further.
Only after I nearly burned myself out again did I realize my journey was far from over; I had more work to do on myself.
By then, Iโd had enough. I was exhausted from grasping. So, I marched straight into the unknown and knocked on the transformationโs door.ย (Okay, I met a fellow coach, and he also pushed me.)
Once I welcomed it, everything shifted.ย
I stopped driving for an outcome and started to enjoy the journey. I gained a greater appreciation for the power of the universe and felt a sense of privilege that I had the opportunity to transform.ย
Doing the work was still hard, but swimming with the current was much easier than swimming against it.
Learning to stop grasping was my first lesson in detaching from the outcomeโit was absolutely freeing!
It turns out Iโd been trying to learn that for a couple of years, to no avail. And now, whether itโs in transformation or business, I help others do it. Itโs the hardest step for most, but the sense of freedom that comes from it is like no other.
โWhen the mind is not colored by grasping, it is freeโfree of disturbance, obscuration, and separationโฆThe mind is at ease. at ease. It is seeing clearly. And it is in union with all beings. Nonseparate! And when the mind is in this excellent and most refined state we are free to truly absorb ourselves in dharma.ย
When there is no obsessive concern with outcome, with gain of any kind, we are able to become completely absorbed in what weโre doingโour actions and thoughts undivided by worry. All of our energy can become concentrated on the task at hand.โ (Cope, p. 604)
ย In the coming weeks, Iโll write more about transformationsโmine and those of othersโand include more about Stephen Cope's book and a few others Iโm reading. If you want to share your experiences with me, don't hesitate to message me or leave a comment below. Please also share any questions. Iโll soon announce a Live Your Opus live conversation for paid subscribers, and I am keen to know whatโs on your mind as you read. Thank you!ย
